S.B. rejection frustrates developer

City says Holladay was asking for too much public investment.

City says Holladay was asking for too much public investment.

September 04, 2006|NANCY J. SULOK

Peggy J. Henderson sent me an e-mail recently to ask who owns the vacant lot on Colfax Avenue at the river, next to the Stephenson Mill Apartments. "If they are not going to build on that site,'' she suggested, "why can't the owners do something to make the lot look better; i.e. flowers, grass, trees?'' Holladay Properties owns the lot, so I called John Phair, Holladay president. Phair said he is reluctant to improve the lot with landscaping or other amenities, because that would be accepting the fact that the site, which once held the Wharf restaurant, will remain empty for a while. Making it look like a park, he said, would make people think that nothing will happen there. Phair would like something to happen there but said he has been met with an unenthusiastic response from the city to Holladay's vision. Last winter, Holladay unveiled a proposal to develop a large area of the east bank, from the mostly unused parking garage at the Commerce Center to the Wharf lot. It's a beautiful site for a combination of housing, shops and businesses, he said. A company called Eco-Urban Collaborative also presented a proposal to the city, but only for the site of the former Rink Riverside Printing Co. Holladay's plan included a hotel/condominium on the Wharf site and an office building across Colfax on the land once occupied by Rink. The $50 million investment would include $10 million to $17 million in costs borne by the city. Holladay wanted the city to tear down the old parking garage and build a new one at that site. It wanted the city to build a pedestrian bridge across the river to link the hotel/condo to Century Center. It wanted the city, Phair said, to build enclosed walkways connecting everything from the east bank to things on the west bank, from Century Center to the Marriott Hotel to the College Football Hall of Fame. Taxes generated from private development would pay back the city's costs, he said. Connectivity was a key word for Phair but apparently a sticking point for the city. Last week, Sharon Kendall, the city's community development director, said she didn't like the enclosed walkways and instead wanted to maintain the outside "walkability'' of the riverfront. Back in January, Kendall said the city was excited by the possibilities of both proposals. But the excitement obviously cooled by May, when the redevelopment commission rejected both plans. Kendall said last week that Holladay was asking for too much from the city. When reminded how much the city had done for the Blackthorn development area near the airport, Kendall said the city can provide roads, water mains and sewer lines, but she questioned whether it is the city's role to build the enclosed walkways and parking garage. Never mind that it has built the parking garage and public spaces at the Leighton Plaza. It also could be obligated to pay $3.2 million for the parking garage at the Gameday Centers condo and hotel project at St. Joseph Street and Jefferson Boulevard. Without the garage, Phair believes, development will be stymied, because parking space is in short supply along the east bank. Minutes from the May 19 meeting of the redevelopment commission said the office staff had specific reservations about the economic viability of both the Holladay and Eco-Urban proposals. "Both proposals present exciting development concepts for the East Bank,'' say the minutes of that meeting, "but the devil is in the details so to speak, and after a careful review of both our own fiscal restraints and the financial projections presented by each proposal, neither project seems to work at this time.'' "They couldn't think of something of this magnitude," Phair said last week. He was annoyed that the city never formally notified him of its rejection of Holladay's plan. At the same time, he said, the city apparently is continuing to communicate with Eco-Urban, because it agreed last month to do soil-boring tests at the Rink site. Kendall countered that Holladay owns the old Wharf site and is free to do whatever it wants there. That's true, Phair agreed, but the site is too small to accommodate parking for a large development. If the city wants to think small instead of dreaming big, he said, it will end up with another Wharf-type restaurant there. Nancy J. Sulok's columns appear on Sundays, Mondays and Thursdays. You can reach her at nsulok@sbtinfo.com, or by writing c/o South Bend Tribune, 225 W. Colfax Ave., South Bend, IN 46626, telephone (574) 235-6234.